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By Deauwand Myers
I have lived in Asia for most of my adult life. What I have found most fascinating is the great PR game America has created for the rest of the world.
What I mean is this: Why on earth would Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, or Singaporean citizens, living in societies with low crime, good physical infrastructure, lack of police violence, high literacy rates, and universal healthcare ever want to leave his or her own country and live in the United States? Because of the movies? Food?
It is just breathtaking to me that a Korean would want to live in such a violent, underdeveloped country as the United States. Besides our military, the little secret is very simple, in every metric, Korea is just a much better country to live in. The only truly poor metric for both Korea and Japan is high suicide rates, lack of women's participation in the workforce and unequal pay parity in the workplace.
But by almost every measure, the United States is woefully behind in its social and physical infrastructure.
Take Korean mothers and childbirth. Maternal death rates and infant mortality rates in Korea are some of the lowest in the developed world.
Meanwhile, the maternal and infant mortality rates in the United States are some of the worst in the world, worse than most developing countries.
Even democracy is better in Korea than in the United States. Disgraced and impeached former President Park Geun-hye was swiftly indicted and imprisoned for corruption, graft, and improperly sharing classified documents. She spent several years in prison before being pardoned. Even the scion of the powerful Lee family was imprisoned and later pardoned, for his role in the graft former President Park's friend gladly participated.
Former President Trump, and all federally-elected officials involved in the Jan. 6th insurrection, and a lot of alleged crimes before and after that shocking day, have not been indicted nor convicted, and may never be.
Korea, a true democracy for less than 30 years, can hold its highly ranked leaders accountable, but the United States, a democracy for well over 200 years, cannot imprison the most corrupt president in American history? It would be laughable, if it were not so sad.
Koreans have a long average lifespan. Lifespans are declining in America.
Koreans have some of the highest levels of literacy of any developed country, meanwhile, the United States has some of the lowest. The same with tertiary education.
The only thing the United States is good at anymore is the military and the military-industrial complex. The thing is, you cannot eat a gun or live in a nuclear missile.
Even Korean housing, though the housing market is still overheated, is better than my home country. In this, I mean there are few homeless in Korea. But the developed country with the most homeless? The United States.
Then there is American gun violence and violent crime in general. The United States has the most gun crimes of all developed democracies on the planet, combined.
Which brings me back to American PR. The quality of life, even for the middle classes in the United States, is far less good than in Korea. And I am wondering what then, is the allure Koreans have in wanting to live, (not visit) the United States?
Is it because of the American victory during World War II? Is it because American military forces have been stationed in Korea all these years? I get part of it is culture. The movies, music, food and television. That can all be consumed online or in Itaewon, however.
Especially in a larger American city, Koreans from Korea would not be safe and have a high chance of getting robbed. And then this anti-Asian racism brought on by COVID only makes the chances higher that verbal and physical violence might ensue.
The United States is not all bad, but it seems a lot of Asians have fallen for the hype that the United States is somehow a great country to live in. And that is just empirically, demonstrably untrue.
I love watching food videos on YouTube. The amount of young restaurant owners originally from Korea and Japan and Taiwan is high. And I am just astounded by that.
Life is not perfect anywhere. Korea's high household debt, poor work-life balance, the hyper-competitive nature of schooling, college, and working at a famous Korean company like Samsung are all challenging. The population is aging and not being replaced.
The government is prone to move too slowly to address the overheated housing market and household debt, and is still prone to lesser forms of graft. I would take all that in spades compared to the utter decline of American society. And it is sad, because it could do better. Koreans, please do not believe the hype.
Deauwand Myers (deauwand@hotmail.com) holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside of Seoul.
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